Notice begins today for 2,100 sex offenders breaking Jessica's Law

SACRAMENTO – Parole agents on Friday will begin notifying as many as 2,100 recently paroled sex offenders that they have to move because they live too close to schools and parks in violation of an initiative approved by California voters last November, officials said Thursday.

The announcement came a month after officials said they had tentatively concluded that that many parolees were violating Jessica's Law, which bars sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of places where children congregate.

The month's delay in notifying parolees means some offenders could have until late October to move. That pushes compliance back to nearly a year after California voters overwhelmingly approved the restrictions.

Corrections Secretary James Tilton said in mid-July that his Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation would give violators 45 days to move.

He said Thursday that it took the department four weeks to come up with procedures to notify the parolees and to reach agreement with the Parole Agents Association of California on issues that include overtime and the increased workload for parole officers who must notify and supervise offenders.

Parole agents will begin serving the notices Friday and must complete delivery to all 2,100 suspected violators by Sept. 11, Tilton told The Associated Press.

Agents must still use satellite-based global position system devices to determine exactly which parolees are in violation, Tilton said.

The 2,100 are among nearly 5,000 offenders paroled since voters passed the ballot initiative last November with 70 percent approval. Courts have ruled that the residency restrictions apply only to inmates freed after the measure was approved.

"We're moving very aggressively. We've got boots on the ground starting tomorrow," Tilton said in a telephone interview. "It's a very complex law and we had to make sure all the instructions were in place."

The 45-day time clock for the offenders to find new housing begins ticking as soon as they are served, meaning the first offenders notified will have until early October to find a new home.

Scott Johnson, president of the Parole Agents Association, said state officials have been moving too slowly to implement the restrictions.

"The law doesn't give them 45 days – they're making it up," he said. "It ends up being about seven weeks, we think, before we get the first body moved. Jessica's Law is the law. They should have started on this Nov. 8, not, what, Aug. 16."

Tilton previously said the 45 day window, while not in the law, is reasonable to give offenders time to comply.

Tilton said the agreement with the Parole Agents Assocation permits whatever overtime is needed for the state's 2,800 parole agents to notify all the sex offenders by Sept. 11. Johnson said the overtime is needed in part because the department has about 100 fewer agents than it needs.

State Sen. George Runner, R-Lancaster, said it was important for the department to have proper policies in place to notify offenders, and to work with the agents who will enforce the law.

However, "We're frustrated that we are now almost, what, nine months after the vote finally getting to the point where there's an implementation process," said Runner.

He was a co-author of the initiative, which is named after a 9-year-old Florida girl who was kidnapped, raped and suffocated by a convicted sex offender in 2005.

Officials said it took the department until late June to adopt an emergency regulation requiring parolees to meet the Jessica's Law residency requirement. Parolees who refuse face the possibility of being sent back to prison for violation of their paroles.

Critics of Jessica's Law, and the department's own assessment, warn that sex offenders could be forced out of towns and cities into rural areas or could go underground rather than register their whereabouts because of the initiative's residency restrictions.

Sending parole violators back to prison also would add to crowding so severe that federal judges are considering capping the inmate population or releasing some prisoners before they have served their full sentences.

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